Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I am asking the Minister to do what was done in the 1970s. I certainly will not apologise because we need social housing to be built on a massive scale. There is no other solution to end this housing crisis. I was in the Dáil over ten years ago. Housing was the huge issue then, but it seems to be so inconsequential to the Government now. I thought it was bad then but now it is unbelievable, in comparison. The Taoiseach said housing was not a central issue in the election campaign. That was his excuse for the Government basically telling lies to the population about the housing figures. Housing was the biggest issue in the election bar none.

I represent a constituency in which there is also a Fianna Fáil representative and a Fine Gael representative. We represent the same constituency yet all the housing problems seems to come my way or the way of Sinn Féin, for example. They obviously do not go to the Minister's party because otherwise the Government would care. We are snowed under with the misery of the housing crisis. In Dublin West, for example, Hansfield Educate Together national school, which my daughter attended, asked parents on Facebook if they have any rooms because they cannot get teachers for the school. A children's class wrote to me from one of the schools in Dublin 15. I assume they wrote to all the TDs about the teacher crisis due to the housing crisis. In one school campus in Dublin 15 the summer before last, four teachers left because their leases were up and they were evicted. The Government is proposing to render null and void the only shining light we had to give to anyone facing eviction because of sale of property. The tenant in situ scheme for eviction for sale of property was the only lifeline we could point people to. It is problematic because you have to get the landlord and the local authority to agree to it. What are TDs and councillors meant to say to people now who face eviction? What is the Minister's answer on that? There were shortcomings in the scheme; for example, there have been 16,531 evictions since late 2023 for sale of property yet there were only 2,500 people helped through this scheme. There should be a lot more. The other problem is intervention in the housing market which is a costly process. Houses are paid for at market rate. This is not the best way to resolve the housing crisis. It is not a substitute for building public housing but it was at least a way of saving people from being turfed out onto the street.

How many local authorities has the Minister met since he got his job to find out what land they have available and their capacity to build social and affordable housing? I would be interested to hear the answer. The Land Development Agency already said there is a potential supply of up to 67,000 houses. That does not include loads of local authority land. In Fingal County Council, of which I was a member for a few months between the local and general elections, I tabled a motion on the greater Blanchardstown area. I would love if the Minister followed this up. There is one site there called Scribblestown-Elm Green. The council said it could supply 7,000 affordable and social homes on that piece of land. That would end the waiting list in Dublin 15. The Minister should be sitting down with councils, finding out what they will do to develop those land banks and reporting to the Dáil weekly and monthly. That is the only solution, ultimately, to the housing crisis. He should be finding that sort of information out. Church Fields is another land bank which is being developed slowly. The other one has been put on the long-term strategy. It should be a priority. That is why we need a State construction company to cut through all the red tape and bureaucracy, identify public land and use workers available to prioritise building homes rather than offices and commercial buildings. That is how we will get the teachers, nurses, therapists and essential workers we need to end so many of the problems we face right now.

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